Homeless Tianjin residents demand compensation, answers

People affected by huge explosion at the port in Tianjin, China, some of them injured, pass the time at the school turned into shelter for evacuated August 14, 2015.

PHOTO: Reuters

TIANJIN, China - Residents who fled their homes near vast and deadly explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin gathered in anger on Monday to demand redress from a government they say is ignoring their plight.

About 150 people, some with their faces scarred and many wearing protective breathing masks, descended on a hotel where government and military officials have been holding daily press briefings on the disaster.

"Buy back!," they shouted repeatedly and in unison, demanding compensation for their lost homes and belongings.

Many said they lived just 600 metres from the disaster, which struck Wednesday night and left a wide swathe of the area in ruins.

Liu Liang, a fashion designer who lives in a development called Harbour City, complained that residents were getting no answers from the government and being treated improperly.

He ran and left everything behind when the disaster struck, he told AFP, removing a bandage to show stitches near his left eye.

"The water, the air, the underground water are polluted," he said, voicing the fears of many.

"We can't live here," he added.

Despite their fury, the protestors attempted to show humility towards the authorities.

"Property owners of Harbour City: We love the Party, trust the government and plead for buyback," read a banner in white Chinese characters on a red background.

Some held small individual signs saying: "We resolutely demand government buyback.

Four officials who held a press conference in the hotel basement did not meet the protesters and left immediately afterwards.

Some of the demonstrators were focused on their families and health.

One woman, wearing a blue face mask, held a sign reading: "Dad, waiting for you to return home." Another banner pleaded: "Give the children of Harbour City a clean future".

Police and other security, including SWAT teams and some in camouflage, stood by watching but no moves were made to stop the gathering, which dispersed after a few hours.

Demonstrations have become increasingly frequent in China in recent years over local issues such as pollution and corruption, but are more common in rural areas and second- and third-tier cities.

Authorities often tolerate them so long as they evince no signs that protesters are effectively organising beyond their own given locale, and do not make demands or criticisms of a political nature, such as condemning the ruling Communist Party.

Wen Jing, another participant, said she, her sister and their parents "ran away" from their 33rd-floor apartment on Wednesday night and are staying in a hotel for now.

"We can't go back to our home," she said, adding it was "totally" damaged.

She too expressed frustration with officials.

"They haven't spoken a word to us yet," she said.

"No one has noticed us yet. No one said anything to us." Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Tianjin on Sunday to inspect the area, a common development after major disasters in the country, where top leaders are keen to show they are responding effectively. The visits are highly controlled and choreographed.

The owners of the hazardous goods storage company at the centre of the incident, Rui Hai International Logistics, reportedly included the son of a former police chief who used his connections to help the firm obtain the necessary permits and pass inspections.

Thousands of tonnes of hazardous chemicals were stored at the site, officials have said, including about 700 tonnes of highly poisonous sodium cyanide, a white powder or crystal which can give off lethal hydrogen cyanide gas.

Chinese authorities struggled Friday to extinguish fires and identify dangerous chemicals at a devastated industrial site, two days after giant explosions killed dozens and left residents in fear of being cloaked in a toxic cloud.

Officials in the northern port city of Tianjin, where the blasts killed at least 56 people and injured more than 700, told a news conference they did not yet know what materials were at the hazardous goods storage facility that exploded, or the cause of the blast.

Some police wore no protective clothing, while others had full-face gas masks, although an environmental expert told an official press conference that toxic gas indicators were within normal ranges and the air “should be safe for residents to breathe”.

Under Chinese regulations, warehouses stocking dangerous materials must be at least one kilometre (0.6 miles) away from surrounding public buildings and main roads, it said, but there were two residential compounds and several main roads within that distance.

China's CCTV reported the toll on Twitter, adding that President Xi Jinping had urged "all-out efforts to rescue victims and extinguish fire," as a blaze continued to rage at the site where more people were feared to be trapped.

Much of the area surrounding the explosion is made up of construction sites for residential and office buildings. Worker dormitories, built of flimsy sheets of thin metal, were torn apart by the blast.

The magnitude of the first explosion was the equivalent of detonating three tons of TNT, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said on its verified Weibo account, while a second was the equivalent of detonating 21 tons of the explosive.

Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily said 13 people were killed in the explosion in a post on Chinese social network Weibo, adding in a separate post that more remained trapped by a huge fire unleashed by the explosives.